Tech Ed: Microsoft Industry Solutions Group Architect Predicts The Obvious

The Microsoft Tech Ed is probably THE geek event here in New Zealand and is currently running in Auckland with Computerworld reporting some of the more fascinating presentations.

This prediction by Microsoft Industry Solutions Group architect Miha Kralj around his predictions made me raise my eyebrows somewhat:

... IT will become industrialised over the next 10 years as consumers grow to expect scalability and repeatability at a commoditised cost.

Um ... yes.
Computers are moving out of the realm of the wizards and into the hands of real people that expect the bloody things to do things for them in the manner they want, when they want ... without breaking. My eyebrows were raised because as far as I can tell Microsoft hasn't been enabling that for quite some and were (are?) content to sit on their revenue stream and feed out boring updates that never actually did more for their customers (a new "ribbon" as a toolbar doesn't really add much does it?)

Oh, don't get me wrong if you sit in an office and want to type words then you're well served by your Microsoft laden computer. Real people do not want to do that 24/7.

Whilst this brave new future that I believe Miha Kralj is correctly (if easily) predicting is being driven by other companies, notably Apple, I am heartened to see that Miha (and therefore Microsoft) understands this "brave new world"

"As the new generation is used to borderless online socialisation, they will refuse to live by enterprise boundaries and hierarchies, so keeping secrets behind corporate walls will become harder and harder. Reputation and trust will become two of the most valuable entities and structures in organizations will flatten."

The world of the digital natives is one of unrestricted access to functionality and free flow of information - this is a challenge that you should start to address now; contact me for assistance

Back to Microsoft ...
Buuuuuuut, once that pile of cash Microsoft have starts to drop and the income is challenged (as it is already) then I don't expect them to roll over and play dead - they are chock full of passionate and talented people that will/are building stuff for real people.

But are they too late?